Enjoying the Greenery

[thezachcooper]

or; Problems with Animal Rights and Environmentalism

by Zachary Cooper

“An environmentalist is a lot like a watermelon, green on the outside, red on the inside.”

"The only thing green about me is the money in my pocket!"

Animal Rights and "Eco-Ethics" are usually ridiculed among Objectivists, Libertarians and other Free-Marketeers. This probably has to do with the Marxist precept driving popular considerations for animals. “From each according to his ability to each according to his need;” we have the ability to defend animals, and they, some would argue, need defending. A bird cannot tell humans its egg shells are thinning, one must write a book about it and become the advocate of a bird. An alligator would do well with human minds, and coincidentally human tax dollars, to keep from becoming a purse.

Noam Chomsky, as he sticks out in my mind, takes this precept and rehashes it into a moral premise: that one who has must help the have-not, people of mind and money must spend their thoughts and capital on those who do not hold money and do not think. Environmentalists and other proponents of animal rights would also extend this to non-humans. Typically the interests of animals are always aligned with a highly anti-industrial agenda. Our needs are encroaching on theirs, and because they cannot defend themselves, the “enlightened” must crusade for them.

I would admit whole-mindedly, that human needs impinge the needs of animals. The space our homes and factories take displace them from their habitats. The production of our luxuries, our CDs, DVDs, paperback novels, medicine, electricity, all requires usurping natural resources which they could otherwise chew on. Should we yield to them? This would clearly mean giving up our industries, cutting our skyscrapers, leveling our smokestacks. I really don’t need to say to my readers, especially on this forum, what happens when industry stops. Yet animal rights are their artifice to this end, quite thoroughly believing it’s the right path to a brave new world.

This is the kind of thinker who says the whole of human progress technologically, culturally, and any facet, is a symbol of arrogance and vanity. This is the thinker who sees no value in intelligence, but plenty in ignorance. “Humans are responsible for war, literature, mathematics, and they think their so great. A dolphin swims free without any knowledge or need of these things, thoroughly happy.” It’s summarized in the slogan: “Earth first!”

But if it came between a pig’s needs and the needs of those humans I love or admire (including myself, thank you)--you’d guess correctly if I put the human needs first. Moreover, I’d put human luxuries before an animal’s rights. If I want an extra glass of milk at a cow’s expense, I see no problem with that. I do not “need” this glass of milk, but I “want” it; thereby I increase a demand for milk which means I further the slavery of bovines. Feh!

I have listened to the Animal-Rights types, the Watermelons, the Vegans, and I find serious problems with their thinking. Coincidentally, the problems I find with their thinking parallel the difficulties I have swallowing Marxist theory. “Ominous Parallels,” yes?

They would decimate me to the value of a house cat ethically for the purpose of giving the house cat value. Akin to how a communist would decimate me to the lowest economic denominator for the sake of the poor. I consider both to be a violation of my rights to my life, my liberty, and my right to hold property. On one hand I’m told I don’t own my money, on the other that I don’t “own” my cat. Animals as comrades, one could say. After all, we’re already told that animals and humans are “brothers,” right?

And this relationship should make me reconsider how I go about my life, and should be my leading concern. That is to say one’s actions should be governed by how it affects (or afflicts) animals, just as a socialist would like one to think about the poor first. Personal freedom to eat or wear animals should be inhibited for the sake of the animals. Personal wealth and means to that wealth should be inhibited for the sake of the poor.

They would like to use political power to force people to respect animals in a certain light. They would like to achieve this power through the self-righteous upheaval of industry. They would say that they obey a superior moral code.

I’ve known people who’ve guzzled this stuff down! I’ve been acquainted with vegans who considered it a moral duty to vandalize corporate venues, organize remonstrations that stop certain goods from making it to their destinations.

Understandably, I attract an odd crowd, but I know this to be unusually common among the young Greens. “Sprouts,” yes?

It is the smokestacks they deface, the tractors that they dismantle, the products they attempt to keep from the shelves, which feed them and me. They would declare that they are entirely right in what they do, and if I starve because they keep tortured chickens from being sold that I’ve starved for a good cause. Or perhaps, I deserve it because I decided not to eat solely vegetables.

It’s the same thinking behind PETA associates who throw red paint on fur coats. They are not willing to respect other people, other people’s private property, or the rights of other people to their choices for the sake of the environment.

Isn’t this sort of subjugation to a “moral” code for the animals, for the love of nature, reeking with the disturbing undertones of fundamentalism? Doesn’t this kind of behavior remind one of the new-found righteousness of some little punk advocating the bouleversement of the bourgeoisie?

Granted, being a laissez-faire advocate, I, too, would like to see great change worldwide. But I wouldn’t do it by seizing public or private parks and burning them to cinders to make way for the new industrial revolution. I would much rather use intellect, words and wit to persuade minds to a new view of capitalism and limited government.

Can the Sprouts say the same? Those of them who see no value in human intellect, words, wit, persuasion or the mind itself are coincidentally the loudest. Those of them who make it the bane of their existence to see “Earth first!” prevail are going to be the individuals who seize power and people’s attention through any coercion necessary.

Of course, I am sure that there are calm, rational people within the environmentalist movement, within the animal-rights movement. However, these are not the ones who screech the loudest. They are the tragic idealists giving way to mean little human-haters, with an otherwise noble argument: let’s keep this Earth in working order--it’s in our self-interest.

Another issue with this school of thought is the vague pretext of a respect for life. It is argued that the animal rights movement, from whose womb vegetable diets emerged, comes from a respect for life. As I hope to’ve evinced above, it certainly doesn’t respect human life. How far should it be extended? If a human life and an animal life should be considered similar, why not plants? Plants respond to stimuli of all kinds, touch, sound, light. They are living things, why’ve we any business eating them if we respect life?

It would be one thing if animal rights were an entirely separate issue from environmentalism. However, there is difficulty in splitting these Siamese twins, and even more difficulty cutting the iron umbilical cord attached to mother Marx. I cannot keep the ideas of animal rights contained without considering the rest of the Green movement. It’s very much a package deal because of the assumptions underscoring the arguments used by the screaming greens.

Inevitably these egalitarian movements are hijacked by thugs who care nothing for the ideals, and everything about power. Consider Soviet Russia, innocent homosexuals being sent to the gulags, regardless if they were needy, poor or underprivileged, because they were enemies of state. They could never reproduce of their own will to bring more bodies into this world for the use of the government. So I guess not everybody is a comrade after all. What a pity, как жаль.

How far after green interests have center stage until they will be used as the façade for the slants of those in power? Isn’t already being used in this way? The Lilliputians are binding us up with eco-friendly smiles but bad politics and anti-individual underpinnings.

I would argue that the best for the environment is capitalism, and uninhibited human greed in the marketplace. Selfishness is the guardian of animals, the atmosphere, and the redwoods.

Why? O! Oist, why dost though ask?

Human beings are the arbiters of value on this Earth, and we do a fair job at it. The environmentalists I’ve talked to over pita bread usually believe that animals have a value in themselves. Without human beings, no value could be attached to animals at all. Animals cannot conceive of values what so ever, it takes us to give them value, whether it be as pets, pelts or pieces on a plate (or Petri dish).

Because we have value in nature, for whatever reason, we’d be interested in its conservation. We will only conserve, however, what we’d like to use. I do not think most people would be interested in preserving something they could never use to some end. People keep china cups in cabinets that they’ll never drink out of, but they like to look at them, collect them show them off. I am sure there is no great shortage of showy little china cups, what is more people seek to keep them in pristine condition.

If a state park were privately owned by a redwood enthusiast, he has the incentive to keep these beautiful trees in perhaps better condition. He is not at the mercy of pandering to government grants; he can build a fortune among his own, interested in the study and aesthetics of redwoods. In turn, his highly selfish conservation of these trees for the beauty he sees in them, goes into furthering their protection from those who’d like to cut down the trees. Furthermore, he is not extorting money through taxes from other people who don’t see the beauty in redwoods.

Even someone who owns such a property interested in providing redwood for construction has an interest in preserving the redwood. If he cuts down all his trees he cannot continue to sell them for wood! If a man is interested in selling chickens for their meat, he’d better make sure he doesn’t cause their extinction.

The same goes for the makers of fur coats, animal-hide rugs, or the breeders and sellers of livestock and pets. Our selfish interest in animals is how we maintain their species, and their health I might add: no one wants to eat a sickly chicken, or milk from a diseased cow. The market would weed out individuals who try to sell infected or poor quality animal products, encouraging their keepers to take better care of them.

To argue that animals shouldn't be tampered with at all would be denying us numerous products and medical advances so some people can live without a sense of self-imposed guilt. They can already circumvent that guilt by simply buying veggie-burgers, cruelty-free cosmetics, and send money to as many zoos and sanctuaries as they wish. They do not have the right to tighten my freedom and decide for me what I need or want.

What are our current eco-friendly principles teaching future generations about man and beast? I would like to conclude with an anecdote.

I was in middle school at the time, and we were watching a film in class. It was towards the end of the school year, so the teachers decided to show us something fun. It was some movie about rescuing an animal, with some animals as featured characters. One of the animals in this film began dying and this caused an upset among my classmates.

“It’s weird,” one girl said, “I don’t feel bad when a person dies in a movie, but when an animal dies, it’s always really sad…”

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I didn't realize this was awaiting moderation. All new threads in the Articles section are automatically moderated. I will change this later when I overhaul the portal, but for now, this kind of glitch happens.

I haven't had time to read it yet.

Michael

[anonrobt]

or; Problems with Animal Rights and Environmentalism

by Zachary Cooper

“An environmentalist is a lot like a watermelon, green on the outside, red on the inside.”

"The only thing green about me is the money in my pocket!"

Animal Rights and "Eco-Ethics" are usually ridiculed among Objectivists, Libertarians and other Free-Marketeers. This probably has to do with the Marxist precept driving popular considerations for animals. “From each according to his ability to each according to his need;” we have the ability to defend animals, and they, some would argue, need defending. A bird cannot tell humans its egg shells are thinning, one must write a book about it and become the advocate of a bird. An alligator would do well with human minds, and coincidentally human tax dollars, to keep from becoming a purse.

Noam Chomsky, as he sticks out in my mind, takes this precept and rehashes it into a moral premise: that one who has must help the have-not, people of mind and money must spend their thoughts and capital on those who do not hold money and do not think. Environmentalists and other proponents of animal rights would also extend this to non-humans. Typically the interests of animals are always aligned with a highly anti-industrial agenda. Our needs are encroaching on theirs, and because they cannot defend themselves, the “enlightened” must crusade for them.

I would admit whole-mindedly, that human needs impinge the needs of animals. The space our homes and factories take displace them from their habitats. The production of our luxuries, our CDs, DVDs, paperback novels, medicine, electricity, all requires usurping natural resources which they could otherwise chew on. Should we yield to them? This would clearly mean giving up our industries, cutting our skyscrapers, leveling our smokestacks. I really don’t need to say to my readers, especially on this forum, what happens when industry stops. Yet animal rights are their artifice to this end, quite thoroughly believing it’s the right path to a brave new world.

This is the kind of thinker who says the whole of human progress technologically, culturally, and any facet, is a symbol of arrogance and vanity. This is the thinker who sees no value in intelligence, but plenty in ignorance. “Humans are responsible for war, literature, mathematics, and they think their so great. A dolphin swims free without any knowledge or need of these things, thoroughly happy.” It’s summarized in the slogan: “Earth first!”

But if it came between a pig’s needs and the needs of those humans I love or admire (including myself, thank you)--you’d guess correctly if I put the human needs first. Moreover, I’d put human luxuries before an animal’s rights. If I want an extra glass of milk at a cow’s expense, I see no problem with that. I do not “need” this glass of milk, but I “want” it; thereby I increase a demand for milk which means I further the slavery of bovines. Feh!

I have listened to the Animal-Rights types, the Watermelons, the Vegans, and I find serious problems with their thinking. Coincidentally, the problems I find with their thinking parallel the difficulties I have swallowing Marxist theory. “Ominous Parallels,” yes?

They would decimate me to the value of a house cat ethically for the purpose of giving the house cat value. Akin to how a communist would decimate me to the lowest economic denominator for the sake of the poor. I consider both to be a violation of my rights to my life, my liberty, and my right to hold property. On one hand I’m told I don’t own my money, on the other that I don’t “own” my cat. Animals as comrades, one could say. After all, we’re already told that animals and humans are “brothers,” right?

And this relationship should make me reconsider how I go about my life, and should be my leading concern. That is to say one’s actions should be governed by how it affects (or afflicts) animals, just as a socialist would like one to think about the poor first. Personal freedom to eat or wear animals should be inhibited for the sake of the animals. Personal wealth and means to that wealth should be inhibited for the sake of the poor.

They would like to use political power to force people to respect animals in a certain light. They would like to achieve this power through the self-righteous upheaval of industry. They would say that they obey a superior moral code.

I’ve known people who’ve guzzled this stuff down! I’ve been acquainted with vegans who considered it a moral duty to vandalize corporate venues, organize remonstrations that stop certain goods from making it to their destinations.

Understandably, I attract an odd crowd, but I know this to be unusually common among the young Greens. “Sprouts,” yes?

It is the smokestacks they deface, the tractors that they dismantle, the products they attempt to keep from the shelves, which feed them and me. They would declare that they are entirely right in what they do, and if I starve because they keep tortured chickens from being sold that I’ve starved for a good cause. Or perhaps, I deserve it because I decided not to eat solely vegetables.

It’s the same thinking behind PETA associates who throw red paint on fur coats. They are not willing to respect other people, other people’s private property, or the rights of other people to their choices for the sake of the environment.

Isn’t this sort of subjugation to a “moral” code for the animals, for the love of nature, reeking with the disturbing undertones of fundamentalism? Doesn’t this kind of behavior remind one of the new-found righteousness of some little punk advocating the bouleversement of the bourgeoisie?

Granted, being a laissez-faire advocate, I, too, would like to see great change worldwide. But I wouldn’t do it by seizing public or private parks and burning them to cinders to make way for the new industrial revolution. I would much rather use intellect, words and wit to persuade minds to a new view of capitalism and limited government.

Can the Sprouts say the same? Those of them who see no value in human intellect, words, wit, persuasion or the mind itself are coincidentally the loudest. Those of them who make it the bane of their existence to see “Earth first!” prevail are going to be the individuals who seize power and people’s attention through any coercion necessary.

Of course, I am sure that there are calm, rational people within the environmentalist movement, within the animal-rights movement. However, these are not the ones who screech the loudest. They are the tragic idealists giving way to mean little human-haters, with an otherwise noble argument: let’s keep this Earth in working order--it’s in our self-interest.

Another issue with this school of thought is the vague pretext of a respect for life. It is argued that the animal rights movement, from whose womb vegetable diets emerged, comes from a respect for life. As I hope to’ve evinced above, it certainly doesn’t respect human life. How far should it be extended? If a human life and an animal life should be considered similar, why not plants? Plants respond to stimuli of all kinds, touch, sound, light. They are living things, why’ve we any business eating them if we respect life?

It would be one thing if animal rights were an entirely separate issue from environmentalism. However, there is difficulty in splitting these Siamese twins, and even more difficulty cutting the iron umbilical cord attached to mother Marx. I cannot keep the ideas of animal rights contained without considering the rest of the Green movement. It’s very much a package deal because of the assumptions underscoring the arguments used by the screaming greens.

Inevitably these egalitarian movements are hijacked by thugs who care nothing for the ideals, and everything about power. Consider Soviet Russia, innocent homosexuals being sent to the gulags, regardless if they were needy, poor or underprivileged, because they were enemies of state. They could never reproduce of their own will to bring more bodies into this world for the use of the government. So I guess not everybody is a comrade after all. What a pity, как жаль.

How far after green interests have center stage until they will be used as the façade for the slants of those in power? Isn’t already being used in this way? The Lilliputians are binding us up with eco-friendly smiles but bad politics and anti-individual underpinnings.

I would argue that the best for the environment is capitalism, and uninhibited human greed in the marketplace. Selfishness is the guardian of animals, the atmosphere, and the redwoods.

Why? O! Oist, why dost though ask?

Human beings are the arbiters of value on this Earth, and we do a fair job at it. The environmentalists I’ve talked to over pita bread usually believe that animals have a value in themselves. Without human beings, no value could be attached to animals at all. Animals cannot conceive of values what so ever, it takes us to give them value, whether it be as pets, pelts or pieces on a plate (or Petri dish).

Because we have value in nature, for whatever reason, we’d be interested in its conservation. We will only conserve, however, what we’d like to use. I do not think most people would be interested in preserving something they could never use to some end. People keep china cups in cabinets that they’ll never drink out of, but they like to look at them, collect them show them off. I am sure there is no great shortage of showy little china cups, what is more people seek to keep them in pristine condition.

If a state park were privately owned by a redwood enthusiast, he has the incentive to keep these beautiful trees in perhaps better condition. He is not at the mercy of pandering to government grants; he can build a fortune among his own, interested in the study and aesthetics of redwoods. In turn, his highly selfish conservation of these trees for the beauty he sees in them, goes into furthering their protection from those who’d like to cut down the trees. Furthermore, he is not extorting money through taxes from other people who don’t see the beauty in redwoods.

Even someone who owns such a property interested in providing redwood for construction has an interest in preserving the redwood. If he cuts down all his trees he cannot continue to sell them for wood! If a man is interested in selling chickens for their meat, he’d better make sure he doesn’t cause their extinction.

The same goes for the makers of fur coats, animal-hide rugs, or the breeders and sellers of livestock and pets. Our selfish interest in animals is how we maintain their species, and their health I might add: no one wants to eat a sickly chicken, or milk from a diseased cow. The market would weed out individuals who try to sell infected or poor quality animal products, encouraging their keepers to take better care of them.

To argue that animals shouldn't be tampered with at all would be denying us numerous products and medical advances so some people can live without a sense of self-imposed guilt. They can already circumvent that guilt by simply buying veggie-burgers, cruelty-free cosmetics, and send money to as many zoos and sanctuaries as they wish. They do not have the right to tighten my freedom and decide for me what I need or want.

What are our current eco-friendly principles teaching future generations about man and beast? I would like to conclude with an anecdote.

I was in middle school at the time, and we were watching a film in class. It was towards the end of the school year, so the teachers decided to show us something fun. It was some movie about rescuing an animal, with some animals as featured characters. One of the animals in this film began dying and this caused an upset among my classmates.

“It’s weird,” one girl said, “I don’t feel bad when a person dies in a movie, but when an animal dies, it’s always really sad…”

The mythology is the so-called 'rights of animals'... the fact is - they do not exist... there are NO rights at the waterhole, and that is the state of nature WITHOUT humans, for it is with the advent of SAPIENTS that rights come into existence, and it is only with sapients that they involve... does this, then, mean it is 'open season' on animals? - no, for there are other considerations which take care of those so-called 'problems', just that those considerations do not involve any supposed 'rights' of animals...

[tjohnson]

The mythology is the so-called 'rights of animals'... the fact is - they do not exist... there are NO rights at the waterhole...

Sure there are. The crocodiles have the right to kill unsuspecting wildebeasts and they have the right to try and get a drink without getting killed. The only way humans are any different is when we have someone enforcing our rights.

[Selene]

The mythology is the so-called 'rights of animals'... the fact is - they do not exist... there are NO rights at the waterhole...

Sure there are. The crocodiles have the right to kill unsuspecting wildebeasts and they have the right to try and get a drink without getting killed. The only way humans are any different is when we have someone enforcing our rights.

GS:

Now that is funny! One of the ways humans are different...works better for me though.

Adam

[Brant Gaede]

The mythology is the so-called 'rights of animals'... the fact is - they do not exist... there are NO rights at the waterhole...

Sure there are. The crocodiles have the right to kill unsuspecting wildebeasts and they have the right to try and get a drink without getting killed. The only way humans are any different is when we have someone enforcing our rights.

GS has the right to walk by the waterhole and observe the wildlife that has a right to eat him.

--Brant

[Selene]

The mythology is the so-called 'rights of animals'... the fact is - they do not exist... there are NO rights at the waterhole...

Sure there are. The crocodiles have the right to kill unsuspecting wildebeasts and they have the right to try and get a drink without getting killed. The only way humans are any different is when we have someone enforcing our rights.

GS has the right to walk by the waterhole and observe the wildlife that has a right to eat him.

--Brant

Brant:

Well, I guess I did jump to conclusions because the person I thought of who would enforce my rights was myself, or the company I was traveling with. I would enforce my rights by killing anything that was attempting to kill me.

Adam

[Xray]

Animals cannot conceive of values what so ever, it takes us to give them value, whether it be as pets, pelts or pieces on a plate (or Petri dish).

Ayn Rand believed that plants can seek values.

Edited November 21, 2009 by Xray

[Selene]

Animals cannot conceive of values what so ever, it takes us to give them value, whether it be as pets, pelts or pieces on a plate (or Petri dish).

Ayn Rand believed that plants can seek values.

Yep, why exploit animals when you can exploit women!

[thezachcooper]

I didn't realize this was awaiting moderation. All new threads in the Articles section are automatically moderated. I will change this later when I overhaul the portal, but for now, this kind of glitch happens.

I haven't had time to read it yet.

Michael

I am surprised to log in, after my long hiatus, to find this has appeared. For a while I thought you had withheld it—sparing my young hide from making a mule of myself, Michael. The moment I submitted it, I disliked it. My style seemed too hot-blooded and too vengeful to describe any idea I might have possessed clearly and magnificently.

Zach